Operation Restore Hope and the Illusion of a News Media Driven Intervention Piers Robinson University of Liverpool US intervention in Somalia (1992) and Iraq (1991) are held as evidence for a more powerful media in the post Cold War era and the thesis that media coverage of suffering people is a major cause of humanitarian intervention. This paper investigates the role of mass media during the 1992 decision to deploy ground troops in Somalia. A media influence model is outlined and then applied to the decision to intervene in Somalia. The research indicates that significant levels of media attention actually followed the intervention decision and that this coverage was framed in a way that built support for the intervention. I conclude there is little evidence to support the claim that media coverage compelled policy makers to intervene or that media coverage was a major factor in policy deliberations. Overall, the role of media in causing intervention in Somalia has been substantially overplayed, instead other factors are likely to have had a far greater effect in causing the inter- vention. This finding challenges both the thesis that media coverage is a major cause of the deploy- ment of ground troops during humanitarian crisis and suggests caution be exercised with regard to post-Cold War claims of a more powerful and influential media. The rise of new media technologies and the passing of the Cold War bring into question the relationship between media and foreign policy making. The prolifer- ation of portable satellite dishes and electronic news-gathering equipment appears to increase the immediacy of ‘distant’ events, reducing the scope for calm policy deliberation and forcing policy-makers to respond to issues focussed on by journal- ists (Beschloss, 1993; McNulty, 1993). At the same time, released from the ‘prism of the cold war’ (Williams, 1993, p. 315) journalists appear freer not just to cover the stories they want but also to criticize US foreign policy. Intervention in Iraq 1991 and Somalia 1992–93, when emotive coverage of suffering people allegedly drove policy making, appeared to confirm the impression of an all-powerful media (labelled mis- leadingly as the CNN effect ). 1 Recent analyses of the relationship between media cover- age and intervention, based largely on anecdotal evidence, however, offer unclear assessments of media power (Livingston, 1997; Robinson, 1999). Studies by Gowing (1994) and Strobel (1997) question how influential the media really are whilst others argue media impact is profound (for example Shaw, 1996). This paper studies the role of news media during the 1992 decision to intervene in Somalia. I start the paper by defining the CNN effect and outlining a media influence model that hypothesizes the conditions under which media influence occurs. The back- ground to US involvement in Somalia is then detailed and relevant research reviewed. Next the model is applied to the 1992 decision by the Bush adminis- tration to deploy ground troops in Somalia (Operation Restore Hope). The research here indicates that only low levels of media coverage occurred prior to the decision to intervene and that substantial media attention actually followed this decision. Moreover media coverage was broadly supportive of Bush’s intervention policy. POLITICAL STUDIES: 2001 VOL 49, 941–956 © Political Studies Association, 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA